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Comment by cyberpanther | Hacker News Reader

I teach at a Bootcamp and see a lot junior developers looking for jobs. Many of them complain of it being hard to find jobs and it is. But I don’t think it is any harder than say 10 years ago when I got started. The main the problem is they’ve never interviewed for a technical position before or aren’t looking in the right places for jobs. Also a lot of jobs are perfectly suited for juniors but it doesn’t reflect that in the job description. So there are a lot of things that make the job search hard and frustrating but the jobs are out there. And I would love to see more companies more actively mentor people too. But those companies do exist today. It’s just a numbers game. If you can hold out, you’ll find it.

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I think bootcamps are flooding the market with juniors. This may be the source of the issue. It could be a supply side issue. Too many juniors leads to the perception that nobody is hiring juniors.

Or maybe too many badly trained people (sorry a 6 week JS course doesn't make you a good developper) are trying to bullshit themselves through interviews, which casts a bad light on all of them.

Could be both. Could be too many badly trained people and too many people who are "good enough." I know plenty of bootcamp developers who have successfully gotten a job.

Searching for a job is way easier if you have a professional network to draw on and beginners, pretty much by definition, really don't.

> a professional network

How? Let's say I work at some company...Then I know exactly my coworkers and customers. How does that help me build a network?

I could maybe ring up some buddys from uni that are working somewhere else... But contact to them also gets lost over time.

I found the job I have now because I was foundering and a college friend put me in touch with a recruiter who was a good match. Now that I've worked in industry for a while, I have colleagues who've moved to other companies I can ask them about. Sometimes old bosses will get in touch and ask me if I'm interested in joining their companies. The more positive experiences people have had working with you the more doors are open.

>But contact to them also gets lost over time

That's probably a mistake on your part, especially when tools like LinkedIn make it so easy.

Yeah. In particular, it's often your looser acquaintances who have something for you.

Indeed, one of my bigger customers now was in a junior role at a company I did some work for years ago. You never really know where opportunities might lie and it costs little to keep in touch.

I think people also get too shy about reaching out to people they haven't been in touch with. Most people aren't going to be annoyed if you say, "Hey, long time no see. How have you been? Wondering if you know anyone who's hiring" or whatever it is you're asking for.

Completely agree, among my peers at university those who had spent the last four years creating a network on Twitter and Github did significantly better at finding a graduate job than those who didn't.

Most of my friends have the job they have because of a combination of Twitter and attending conferences on discounted student tickets.

totally agree.

I would say a good 10-20% do have some kind of contact in the industry though and get a job that way.

Honestly, I think a lot of what you are paying for with the boot camp is the promise that their network and industry contacts will help you. Otherwise it's pretty much impossible (at least in my view) to justify those tuition rates.

Having gone through a bootcamp, I can also say there's the "we know what we're getting," factor. The job I got hired into afterwards, they knew I would be competent to a certain degree because they'd already hired out of that bootcamp before, and the bootcamp had pretty strict standards about who made it to Career Day. That was a definite factor in my getting hired.

Not to say this would or wouldn't justify various tuition rates - but it's definitely part of the equation.

Well, right, that ties in with the rest of it. It's like having someone to vouch for you to help get your foot in the door.

If you look at long term value, the tuition is really nothing. At a good bootcamp even without any industry contacts you will probably have a job in 6 months. Sure your salary will be lower than a CS grad, but you'll also have way less debt.

But yes look at placement rates at any bootcamp before joining. If people are getting jobs then it's well worth it.

Right, I suppose what I mean to say is, if you were "just" learning how to program, it probably wouldn't be worth it, because you could learn just as well on your own for practically nothing (order some books on Abebooks and watch some videos on Coursera and you've got a decent curriculum). But if you do that you haven't made any contacts and don't have anyone to vouch for your skills.

A good analogy is a bootcamp is like a personal trainer. Sure you could do jumping jacks yourself but when someone yells at you to get them done, you do it more often and faster. Some people need that extra push through.

But yes some people have plenty of self motivation and can do it themselves. The career networking is really all they need then.

I did it the free route but I considered a boot camp a bit just for the network, so that's where I'm coming from.

Oh yeah watch out for bootcamps that juice their placement stats by hiring their own grads a lot. It's normal to hire a few grads for teaching assistants but if you see more than that be weary.

I’ve helped several friends get into programming with no prior experience. A few of them did a boot camp. I told all of them that what they needed was to spend a year working hard on a personal project nights and weekends to get enough hours coding, to hit real world problems and have to deal with them, and to have a portfolio piece. The boot camp, if they took it, would be a jump start to get going, but not a guaranteed job.

This recipe worked out for all of them so far. Just being able to code “off script” without the guidance of an instructor, and having something real on Github to show for it, seems to be the difference.

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